Thursday, November 29, 2012

so I said to her, I said...

For months, a dog on the loose has been sneakily shitting outside my mother in law's house. It used to be a garden, but now it's paved so she can park there (since some gurrier joyriding teens damaged her car one night, sigh).

Once a day, the dog leaves a pile of poo, usually close to her car. It's gross. It's infuriating. It's so sneaky! It's blatantly pbvious someone on the road is just letting their dog out to poo so they don't have to deal with it.

The other day I was leaving and saw a dog come out of a house two doors up, and scoot into the open fronts of both my mil and her neighbour. That was it! An elderly King Charles Spaniel! Located!

I've urged her to return the poo to the garden whence it came, but she said she'd have to talk to her neighbour, Mrs D first. she'd already discovered it was her from pressing another neighbour, Mrs G, who apparently (and I'd well believe it) spends her days watching from behind her net curtains and is mistress of Goings On on the street.

Apparently my mil asked her, and she looked guiltily inscrutable.Only when my mil promised her name would not be mentioned did she tell on Mrs D.

So, the next day there were not one but two poos to clean up, and Mrs D, the irresponsible dog owner happened to walk by just as my mil (didn't we call her Betty?) was finishing cleaning them.

Mrs D: Hello Betty!
Betty: Mrs D, hello. We've been neighbours for many a long year and I'd hate to fall out with you over something stupid, etc.
Mrs D: Merciful hour, of course not, Betty, what is it?
Betty: Well, Mrs D, it's your dog, well, it's crapping in my front garden.
Mrs D: Betty, I can smell it now! (editor's note: ew?) Oh, I'm so sorry, it's awful, I wonder what to do.
Betty: Well, Mrs D, would you not let it out the back? (there's a lane at the back of the houses, through the garden gate. But Mrs D things Betty means her back garden and says: )
Mrs D: But then I'd have to clean it up!

What the actual fuck? The NERVE of her, to say this to the woman who's been cleaning up her dog's shit, outside her house, for months!!! My mouth fell open, I must admit, and Betty just said, ah, you know, it's our generation, it's just the way we are...

what? Criminally selfish and irresponsible?

I must confess that my dogs did tend to escape fairly regularly and I know they pooed in the neighbour's garden and I did NOT go out after them, scooper in hand. Which makes me an asshole, yes. I wouldn't let that happen now - in fact, it's the main reason I don't have any more dogs, I have no desire to deal with their poo ever again. However, if my poor neighbors had mentioned it to me, I certainly wouldn't have whined about not wanting to clean it up instead of them. Damn!